Periscope- where's the heart emoji??

Every year my students perform scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream for their Embedded Assessment. I record them and save them. I'm not really sure why I've saved all  these performances for the past few years. There had to be more purpose in this-both for me and the students.

Periscope is my newest tech tool in the classroom and I must say I love it. Today we tried it out with our AMND performances. My student teacher and myself have been tweeting about today for the last couple of days trying to get the word out about the performances and to reach a wide audience.

My students performed live or showed their video taped their scenes. We live broadcasted them via Periscope which also posted a live feed or taped to my Twitter account (@MrsBushLA) This allowed my students to have a live audience! It also gave a purpose for performing. It wasn't just for me and their classmates. It was also for the wider audience we reached. Viewers were able to tweet and comment on their performances. Okay- we didn't have tons of viewers (it was our first time, after all) but I think there's hope for us!

The Day the Planets Aligned AKA Microsoft OneNote Available for ALL Educators!

This morning has been the best morning ever- in a nerdy tech way. Microsoft is allowing ALL educators to have OneNote Class Notebooks! Eek!!! I saw this as a tweet on Twitter and had to check it out. (Read the blog post to learn more) And yesterday I learned that my district has given all of us (students included) Microsoft 365 accounts (score!).

I've been using Microsoft OneNote all year with my students and half of last year. The problem I had was that we didn't have the classroom component so I couldn't "see" their notebooks easily. As an English teacher, that frustrated me. I love reading their writing and their thoughts. Really, I need to read their writing and thoughts. That's important and necessary. Hello, feedback!

Problem now solved (I think). This weekend, I'm creating new notebooks, adding students, and playing around with the Class Notebook some more. OneNote has been a huge game changer in taking my classroom paperless.

Microsoft, thank you! To my school district, thank you! To my students- get ready! We go on Monday!

#iTeachDigital

This week I had the opportunity to attend a technology conference from eTechCampus called #iTeachDigital. I love the moments I get to spend exploring technology to incorporate in my classroom. The #iTeachDigital seminar is part of eTechCampus and provides Learning Management Systems (LMS) for courses, professional learning, and consulting. Our trainer for the day was Bridget McKnight and absolutely fabulous!

What I really liked the most about this seminar was that Bridget addressed both the needs of computer users as well as iPad users. All the apps we looked at were web based and had an app. In a district like ours, where the students have Dell tablets and the teachers have laptops AND iPads, I found this very helpful. A few of my favorite apps we looked at and were able to play with were Zaption, Tackk, and Quizizz. These were probably my favorites of the day and ones that I can see using in my classroom.

I have been wanting to find a do-able way to flip my classroom. Where do I start? What video do the kids watch? I don't teach math so how can I flip a lesson without me direct teaching in my video? What if I want them to actually stop and reflect or answer questions on the video? Zaption to my rescue!

Zaption has a gallery of videos that you can search for topics that you would like to use in your classroom. My Language Arts class is currently studying persuasion and argument. What do I find on Zaption? A video of commercials (already compiled) that addresses rhetoric and persuasive techniques. One of the greatest things about the Zaption lessons is that you decide where you want the video to stop and ask the student a question! Yes. That's right- now there's a purpose for this video and the students aren't just blankly staring at the screen.

But what if you wanted to use it in class? Well it wouldn't serve much purpose or be engaging if every kid had their device on with earbuds zoning out and robotically punching the answer. This is why Zaption has the broadcast function where students can join the lesson from their device and receive feedback about their choices. Now we've engaged the learners in your classroom.

I'm really excited to try this out. Next week, I plan to use this lesson to review persuasive techniques with my Language Arts classes. After a week of Benchmark, they may need a refresher.

Tackk reminds me of Smore. It is a little bit different but the idea is the same. Smore is more for newsletters and I definitely don't see Tackk just for that. In fact, they have a board of 20 ways to use Tackk in the classroom. I plan to use it for collaborative projects right now but we'll see!

You can sign up with Google, Edmodo, Office 365, and many other ways.  Select a template to create a board. Students use #tags to organize their Tackks and they can even give one another feedback.

Another idea for teachers is to search for boards and see what other educators are doing for lessons and copy that board for your own use. I love Tackk! Great app!

I might switch over to Tackk after using it instead of Smore. Sorry, Smore but Tackk is free! I can only have so many Smores before paying and the number of things I can do with a Tackk board make it almost limitless.

There is one down side and that is that the web based version is jam packed with options while the iPad doesn't have everything. If that isn't a problem for you, then start today and make an account!





At first glance, Quizizz may look like another Q&A platform similar to Kahoot. Look a little closer and you will see that it's more. Quizizz has the user create an account and begin making a quiz or choosing from their collection of pre-made quizzes. Just like with Kahoot, the quizzes are multi-player, or can be assigned for homework (this is a new function!!!), and then you receive data.

One of the great things about creating a quiz using Quizizz is that you can search other quizzes while making yours and add questions from other quizzes! That means less time spent making the quiz and more time on other more important things that we as teachers need to do. You also don't have to add ALL the questions from those quizzes. You can pick and choose which questions you're interested in.

I'll be using Quizizz in the next couple of weeks for my students' vocabulary assignments. It's always painful and I'm hoping this will dull the pain we all feel.


I hope this has been beneficial. Please give some of these apps a try. There are so many others that we played around with but these were my favorite for my classroom application. Some other apps you may be interested in trying are: Padlet, Thinglink, Haiku Deck, Formative (pretty cool if you're transitioning from paper!), and Nearpod.

Next week, I'll be trying out Periscope for the first time in my classroom and broadcasting my PreAP students' A Midsummer Night's Dream scene interpretations. Follow me on Twitter and download the Periscope app to be part of the broadcast: @MrsBushLA

Spiral Education

This past week, Spiral Education contacted me via Twitter to ask me to try their app called Spiral Education. Spiral allows you to create classes, utilize apps that are for questions and answers, host discussions, and work on group projects.

There are two ways to go about adding students. You can either send them to the site and they search for your school or you can create a login for them. I actually did it both ways. I much prefer that I create the login for them. My students (8th graders) had issues remembering what their username and passwords were. This just makes me shake my head in embarrassment but they really made their own username and password and forgot what they created.

According to Spiral, users can use any device to login and participate. I'm not sure what the best device would be to use. We had problems from the beginning. Maybe there were too many people on at once. Students had issues submitting their answers, seeing the box to type/draw their answers, and work on the group project that I assigned later in the week. Some students were never able to participate.

My school district is 1:1 and I need the apps and technology we use to work more times than not. I found Spiral to be a little too glitchy for me. This caused time to be wasted, frustrated students, and frustrated teacher. Spiral doesn't have a good FAQ or guide to get you started either. This is all by testing things  out.

I wish I could recommend using Spiral Education but at this time, I see that there are many problems that need to rectified before using again in my classroom. I love the idea. Kinks need to be worked out.

Scavr- Another way to have a scavenger hunt

Over the past year-while I've been MIA- I've really been finding more and more ways to incorporate technology in my classroom every day. I was accepted into a cohort in my district called i3 and it's focus is on incorporating technology. I've learned so much in just a few meetings. I've also wanted to bring these technologies back and use them and share them. My excitement is a little much sometimes.

My students started their unit on comedy and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Last year, while I was on maternity break, I had my substitute do a generic Shakespeare scavenger hunt. Yay. I had planned on using this scavenger hunt this year. I mean it's better than a PowerPoint on Shakespeare, right? My students are engaged and that makes everyone happy. But I wanted more. More engagement and using technology. After an i3 meeting and watching a group present Scavr, I thought this would be fantastic!

Scavr is an online scavenger hunt. It's free (I like that!). You create an account, set it up, send the link to the students (or post it), students create an account and then create a team. Then, (here's the kicker) they'll need an Apple device. Now, if you have middle school or high school students (like me) that shouldn't be a problem. Mine had a great time using their phones. If your school has iPads this would work too. Right now Scavr doesn't work with other types and that was a sad moment. Students will go to Find an Event on their device and the event they registered for will be there.

Some really neat things that Scavr brings that your every day scavenger hunt doesn't: they can take pictures or videos. You set the points for each question and can give bonus points. If what they submit isn't what you want you have the ability to accept it or reject it. This also shows up on their device and notifies them with a checkmark or an x.

 

The following are some examples of what my students were able to submit on their scavenger hunt.

 

Picture for one of the questions

 

 

 

 

I plan on using this again. I really liked it. The students really liked it. It's a little confusing with registering but not too bad. There aren't instructions on Scavr which would be nice. Later on in the year, we'll be studying the Holocaust. I plan on using Scavr again with that unit. Hopefully, it'll be just as successful!

 

I hope you give it a try!



Pixton vs. Storyboard That

Today I'm linking up with Technology Tailgate for Techie Tuesday Link Up!

Early in the school year, my students read Lois Lowry's The Giver and created a graphic novel depicting The Hero's Journey. When I first started teaching this unit a few years ago, my students drew their own graphic novels. Oh the complaints! "This isn't an art class!" "I'm not a good drawer!" Even though I reassured them that the content of what they wrote was more important than the quality of their pictures.
Since my district's push is with technology, a teacher friend of mine introduced me to Pixton. She was using it with her kids and they were able to focus more on what the point of this unit was- depicting The Hero's Journey and visualizing. I used Pixton and had pretty good success with it. There were some frustrations, however. After the unit this year, I discovered Storyboard That. It's extremely similar to Pixton.
Let's compare the two!
Pixton

The learning curve with Pixton comes when you actually go to create the comic. There are so many features including facial expressions and posing of your characters that students can get really bogged down in choosing just the right positioning. The good news is that Pixton has videos that are only about 30 seconds long that are How To videos. My students (8th graders) watched them and were able to quickly figure out how to pose their characters, choose colors, backgrounds, and resize what needed sizing.

Pixton creation

Storyboard That

Storyboard That has the same basic functions of Pixton. I haven't used it with my students this year since I found it after the unit I usually use Pixton with, but I have an idea for using it soon.
Teachers have a dashboard, students use an activation code to join the teacher's class, etc.
Storyboard That doesn't have the same learning curve that Pixton does. The characters and backgrounds can be colored, but there isn't the posing and moving challenges that Pixton has. The characters are pretty stationary in the poses. Storyboard That also provides help for the user. Instead of videos they're still screenshots. Storyboard That works on tablets too! This is huge for my district since next year, our students will be given Dell tablets and will no longer have netbooks.

Created in Storyboard That

Pixton allows the teacher to create a classroom, assign assignments for students to create, create rubrics to grade students, and share with one another privately. Another feature of Pixton is that students can work on their comics together (if working in partners) or alone. I discovered this feature this year when my students worked in pairs with their graphic novels. Students sign up with an activation code or the teacher can enter names. In a 1:1 it takes no time at all to get everyone going.



Pixton isn't free. Depending on the number of accounts you pay for will depend on how much it will cost you. Here in the screenshot you can see for 50 accounts and for 2 months it would cost $42.

Storyboard That isn't free either. The pricing is a little better though!

I'm definitely interested in giving Storyboard That a try. They provide lesson plans to use and webinars and events on technology in the classroom for teachers. I think Storyboard That might be the way to go for me!

Blog Topic Ideas For the Classroom

Spring Break is pretty much over and now that it's coming to an end I've had some time to reflect on some things in my classroom. A few weeks ago, I received a comment from a visitor asking what I have my students blog about. I thought that I would create a post about just that. Now that I've been in school for 3/4 of the year and my students have been blogging for that length of time, I feel that I can truly discuss blogging in the classroom.

One thing that I think is very important when your students are blogging is that they still have the freedom to choose what they write about. This is still writing but just in a digital way! I tell my students that this is their virtual Reader's/Writer's Notebook. With that, I do require certain things from them on the blog because I do know that:

1. Some students are not yet ready to produce their own topics
2. Writing assignments for my class are required from time to time

The writers in my class treasure their blog and have truly taken ownership of it by personalizing and freely sharing, posting, and commenting on one another's blogs hoping to develop the writing connection with one another. Other students need a little more help from me in what I want to see as far as writing goes. 

Exit Tickets- A great way to give your students an idea for a blog post is have them write a post in response to what happened during class. Just like a written exit ticket it can be about anything!

Quick Writes- This is a great way to start class when students first arrive. They complete a quick write over the topic that you want them to write on for a few minutes. This can be posted on their blog and then allow each other in the class to comment on these. Commentary is such a great tool for each student to see that their words are powerful!

Create a weekly blogging schedule- I have a weekly blogging schedule for my students to use if they wish. Every day of the week has a different theme like "Text Talk Tuesday." The way this works is if a student is blogging on a Tuesday and they need something as a topic they can use Text Talk Tuesday. Text Talk Tuesday (for my Language Arts class) just means that their blog post focuses on a piece of text where they thought it was meaningful/insightful/powerful, etc. and they quote it and then respond to it. This is a way for me to bring in reader's responses without calling it a reader's response. 

Book Reviews- If you teach a Language Arts class this is a great way to get the conversation about books going! Students love to talk about the books they've read (good or bad!). Just make sure you've gone over book reviews first. You may even keep a template for how to write a book review as a resource for them to follow on the blog.

Embed Web Tools- Sometimes I use web tools like Padlet to start discussions in my class and then my students are able to interact with it. I've also had my students use Smore recently and embed the Smore directly into their blog. Students learn how to embed basic HTML code this way. It really opens up what they're able to do and share. 

Keep in mind- if you can write it on paper, you can probably find a way to share it on your blog.

For more ideas check out my class blog here! Have a great week everyone!!

Twitter Chat Part 1 and Storify app

Last night was the first Twitter chat as part of a series for Aimee Buckner's Notebook Know-How. This was a new format of book study for my entire department. Their participation and enthusiasm for the discussion was so great! I have watched Twitter chats before but never participated in one. Wow! They are fast paced. As a Language Arts teacher, brevity is not my forte! We were all forced out of our comfort zones and pressed to be concise in what we wanted to say.

Below, is our Twitter chat in a published form. It's not always pretty, but I found this to be a great way to quickly share our thoughts in a short period of time. We can always come back to this and add to one another's conversations. I hope to see this grow and use it in the classroom.

I used the app, Storify here to make this transcript. You can quickly and easily create a transcript of something like a Twitter chat. This would be such a great tool to use in the classroom.



If you are interested in participating in tonight's Twitter chat it's over Ch. 3 & 4 and will again take place from 8-9CST. We hope to see you there!

Portfoliyo vs. Remind101: A New Way to Connect With Parents

I'm always looking out for new types of technology to use in the classroom. I especially like trying various things to connect with my students' parents. I used Remind101 last year. Many parents didn't understand how it worked and were hesitant to try it out. I had more students than anything sign up. They liked getting notifications about upcoming assignments.

I recently found Portfoliyo. I'm a member of Tioki, which is a site similar to LinkedIn but just for educators. Portfoliyo's setup is similar to Remind101. Send a text to a number, answer a few questions to get started, and bam you're set to get reminders.

Portfoliyo Signup Screen

The main difference between the two is that Remind101 doesn't have two way communication. You the teacher send out information. The parent receives it. It stops there. With Portfoliyo, you send out information and the parent can respond to your text. The parent can also respond to your text without you sending anything to them. They only need your special text number. This is a feature different than Remind101.

Dashboard in Portfoliyo

I can see Portfoliyo being especially useful for those parents that don't have email and it's hard to reach them on their phones. I'm pretty sure that the majority of my kids' parents have cell phones that can send and receive texts but they don't all have emails. I like the feature of the two way communication. With Portfoliyo, you login to their website and you can see any messages that you have waiting for you. You can invite other teachers and create groups.

Depending on what you need, I can see benefits to both applications. I would like to see an app for Portfoliyo. That would be beneficial to the teacher. Try them both out! They're great ways to add communication with your parents.

Technology Overload!

Right now I'm on a lunch break from my Technology Integration Academy. I'll be linking up with Technology Tailgate (I know it's not Tuesday but I've been here since Tuesday!)

 My school district is BIG into technology and after your third year they expect you to have a certain amount of techno skills! Three days of straight technology information is a lot but I have learned so much and now I have some really neat tools to use in my classroom. Some I've used/played around with before but never really knew the true capabilities of it.

Our district uses Moodle for teachers' assignments. Each teacher has a Moodle page and that allows parents and students access to files and other activities determined by the teacher. During TIA I learned that Moodle is now Moodle 2.0. Boy! Talk about bells and whistles. I'm going to need a class on the new Moodle to learn it all. I can now have a Twitter feed embedded into my Moodle page. And yes, I went ahead and created that!

I also discovered Livebinders (I know I'm super late to that party!). I've heard of them and seen people talking about them but never knew how to use them. Watch out 8th graders because I'm pretty sure you'll be using this (can we say PBL??).

Livebinders: used a Google search to fill with articles! WHAT?!?!

We also delve into Google forms. Again, I'm all over this. I'm thinking about creating a spreadsheet on Google forms to use as a Status of the Class for my Language Arts class. I've been the one that has been asking them what page they're on in their independent reading. Why am I doing all the work for them?? These are 8th graders. They need to take some ownership over their own learning and responsibility for it!

Google form: Status of the Class in progress

 We also played around with making a simple form for parents to sign in at Open House. You know sometimes things are just so simple you don't think of them yourself!

Google form for Open House- Please sign in!

We start back pretty soon. I see we're going to be talking about QR codes. I'll have to tell you in another post about my QR code and book trailer idea for my classroom library. It's time to get back to work. I just love technology!!

A Blogging Epiphany and FREEBIE!!

I love words. I love the word epiphany. Today, on the way home from a super fun playdate, I had an epiphany. I'm pretty sure if I was able to still teach with the two ladies, Laura and Lori (from The Thompson Trio in Texas), I would have more of them.

Blogging has become a kind of obsession with me this summer. It annoyingly (sorry everyone) comes up in my daily conversations. I was determined to make this work. Life has a tendency of getting in the way of so many things, but I thought if my students were going to do this then I'm going to do it too. So, needless to say, blogging has been on my mind.

On the drive home, I began thinking about blogging with my kids. Was I going to use kidblog or Edublogs? Was I going to have the same requirements as last year? What was I going to introduce to them first? How? Then it occurred to me. The teaching blogs I read, I've been exposed to them through a linky party. Why not have a linky party with my students? Why not have guest bloggers on my teacher blog page? Thus, the epiphany!

I came home and began to think of all the things that I want my kids to do on their blogs. This is their reader's/writer's notebook. I want them to write reflections, wonderings, book reviews about their books, etc. I also want them to be creative and create their own writing. I want them to share with their peers. I want them to give each other feedback about their reading and writings.

That's what we do as professional educators. We aren't reading one another's blogs looking for mistakes and how to edit our writing. We're learning about teaching from one another. We're looking at the content of the blog post. I learn just as much from an elementary blogger as a middle school blogger as a high school blogger. This community has so many talented people in it. I want my classroom to have that same sharing of ideas and community feel.

I made this schedule for my students to follow. I won't require them to blog every day. Let's be real here- these middle schoolers have their plates full with athletics, extra-curriculars, and academics! I do expect one blog post a week. They can pick the day. They'll link up like we do here in "teacher blogging land" and share with one another. Here is the schedule I've created. It's FREE on my TpT store. Get it now!

Beginning of the Year Prep

I've gone to school one time. I've gone to training multiple times. Now is the time that I really have to buckle down and start thinking about what I'm doing this coming school year. I've decided to incorporate more ways to connect with my students and parents. With all the technology available to my students and their parents I feel as though I should really utilize it.

Our students will each have a Dell tablet. I'm going to have them blog for their Reader's/Writer's notebook again. It was pretty successful last year and I've learned a lot. I have a much better idea of what to expect from them and what I need to do this time to start them off. I loved seeing the progress they made. It was such a great journey we had together. My favorite moment was when one of my students who was dead against blogging at the beginning decided to start a story. She had submitted multiple chapters and I had been getting behind in approving posts. So she came to me and asked me to hurry up and at least approve hers because she had people who were asking when the next chapter would be out! I loved that! From not wanting to blog to having fellow classmates waiting for the next chapters? That to me was awesome!

I still haven't decided which blogging platform to use. We used kidblog last year. It worked. It was easy to use both for students and myself. This year, I've been seriously thinking about Edublogs. It gives my students a little more options with widgets and personalization that they didn't necessarily get with kidblog. If anyone has thoughts on that, please comment below! I would love to hear about your experience. If you have never blogged with your kids and want a place to start, I would recommend using kidblog. It really is super easy!

I've made an additional Twitter account where I'll be posting upcoming assignments and reminders for parents and students to follow. From last year, I learned my students are using Twitter more than Facebook and I really do like being able to shoot a quick tweet about what we're doing. This would help communicate with parents and hopefully allow my 8th graders a way to take some ownership over what they're responsible for.

I also added an additional Instagram account. This is going to be more of a headache for me going back and forth between my personal Instagram and school one. I think I'll manage though. I want to use this to show parents the work their kiddos are creating as well as a place for my students (and parents) to reference anchor charts over what we're learning. My kids rely on the anchor charts and I have them create them as well. The anchor charts at school aren't helpful when they're working on something at home and don't have that visual reminder.

Due to all these places to connect, I plan on making these magnetic business cards for parents to pick up at Open House. It gives them access to all of it conveniently placed on a magnet! I'll have this information on my school website for parents that can't make it.

Technopalooza 2013

So the first day of Technopalooza didn't happen due to my mom getting hit by an 18 wheeler. Yeah... Long story short she's okay. The car isn't pretty and my daughter wasn't with her. Needless to say, I missed the first day and was super disappointed but thought it would be better. I did get my Dell tablet! But didn't get a chance to work on it.

Technopalooza Day 2! I'm pretty excited today. Either I've had too much coffee or it really is excitement causing my nervous shaking and fast talking. I was surprised at how few people from the district were there. Our district is {majorly} into technology. With an opportunity like this to spend a couple of days and learn more about technology available to us I would have expected more people to be there. That's kind of disappointing.

Here we are! Day 2 peeps!

One of the neatest sessions I was at today was one about Google apps. I'm going to have to do a blog post dedicated to only this after I've had more time to go through these and try them out. There were some that I had no idea about. The guy who presented had us scan a QR code when we got in the room that connected us to a website that was packed full of lessons and links to even more for all grade levels and subjects. I mean {all} subjects! Not just the core ones.

Some sessions I was disappointed in to be honest. I am no technology guru but after working in this district, I know a lot! I wish there were more differentiated sessions for people who are more advanced than others. The district did a great job of putting this together. I got to learn how to use Windows 8 today on my tablet and that was a {HUGE} accomplishment. I felt like such an idiot today not knowing how to use this. I got it now though. The tablet's charging and we're going to get to work on getting some things done!

If anyone has any suggestions of some great apps to use in a Language Arts class for a Windows tablet I would love to hear about them! Comment me below.

Unproductive Day :(

I went up to my school today to do some cleaning, organizing, and getting some of the stuff I've bought out of my house. I took Avery with me and my mom came to help. This was probably the {least} productive time I've ever spent in my classroom. Ever. This little girl makes me and anyone in range only want to play with her. Therefore, not much work was done. But, she's pretty cute.

I did get my filing cabinet cleaned out. It was stuffed with folders and student work that I was holding on to. I saved a few things and took pictures to save electronically to my computer to use as exemplars and trashed the rest. I hate saying that but I can't hold on to it!

I plan on using my filing cabinet as a magnetic board. I think I will implement a "No Late Work Club" or "Homework Club" idea. Once I see what classes I'll be teaching this coming year I'll be able to wrap my brain around that.

I'm so excited about tomorrow and Thursday! My district is having it's annual Technopalooza!! I will definitely be blogging about this in the next couple of days. Talk about a technology overload! We also are going to be getting our new Dell tablets! I can't wait to see what all I can do with it.

Tagxedo

Today, I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday and Technology Tailgate for Techie Tuesday.

We've all used Wordle with our students. It's such a neat way for students and teachers to produce beautiful word clouds. Now there's Tagxedo!  I know. So what? What's so great about this one? It just makes word clouds. Yes... but you can make these word clouds into various shapes that go along with the words that you are using. You can even put a URL in and the program will pull words from the website and create a word cloud.

As an example, in the News field I typed in "teaching", chose a font, theme (these can be changed later), and hit submit. It takes a couple of seconds for the cloud to be created. 

Here's the word cloud in an apple shape. I changed the font and colors. If I wanted to change the theme I could do that here too. Look at all the possibilities! 

After that, all you need to do is save it! Then you can print it out or embed it.

Here's an example of a Tagxedo word cloud from this website:

Oh the possibilities and combinations are endless! Enjoy!!